Page 63 of Final Proposal

Isolated in a sense.

At home, I have friends. While I never let them in too much or let them get too close, at least I have someone to meet up with for drinks after work or grab a coffee with on a lazy Sunday morning. I never realized how much that companionship mattered until I didn’t have it.

But here it’s me. It’s Ford. It’s an inn that’s in complete disarray. There’s very little outside contact other than a quick drive to the supermarket across town or an absent conversation with the food delivery driver.

It’s Sunday and, for the first time since we “broke ground” so to speak, the inn is void of workers. Because of our accelerated schedule, different crews are here around the clock. And while that commotion is overwhelming, it also prevents any downtime. It prevents me from realizing the solitude in the silence, something I seem to be an expert at. Especially since I lost my mom.

I glance up to the rooftop bar in the making. To where Ford has made his pseudo flat—where he sleeps and works. To where he’s currently occupied with his other job—Sharpe International stuff. A conference call with people on the other side of the world—or Mars, for all I know. Or maybe he’s doing nothing more than sitting in the same solitude I am but enjoying it.

Fordham Sharpe.

He was supposed to be off limits. Supposed to be a look-from-afar-but-don’t-touch. And now I can’t stop thinking about him, and in the odd times that I’m able to, of course, that’s when he needs to speak to me.

But I’m old enough to know how this story ends. And it’s not a happily ever after like the one I got to in my book but didn’t finish last night.

Then again, I’m not into happily ever after. I’m into the now. Into some good sex and enjoying the moment. I’m into the presumption that the couple I’m reading about will stay together.

Maybe that’s why I never read the epilogues. Maybe I know that love ends in pain, in being left behind, and I want to suspend disbelief that it won’t for my fictional friends.

And even in knowing this, in acknowledging that the physical is all I’m ever after and never the emotional connection, why is it that sleeping with Ford scares the hell out of me?

Is it because for the first time in forever, I have someone on my side who believes in me? Maybe I value that more than a fleeting orgasm.

Then again, why can’t I have both? The support and the great sex?

It is the twenty-first century, after all.

I take a sip of my wine and stare out at the ocean and its never-ending horizon. Seagulls squawk. The waves crash. My thoughts run as the notion takes hold.

I want Ford again.

“Hey, you.”

Ford takes a seat beside me, leaning back with his elbows in the sand and his feet crossed at the ankles, before I can even respond.

“Hi.”

“It’s weird for it to be so quiet inside,” he says as he reaches up and tugs on my ponytail.

“I know. That’s partly why I’m out here.”

“Does the other part have anything to do with me?” He lifts an eyebrow as our stare holds, and I shrug. “Fair enough.”

“I know the answer to the why, Ford. Maybe I just don’t want to say it out loud because it sounds ridiculous.”

“Like I said”—he shifts so that he’s propped up on one hand while his other hand tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. It’s an oddly intimate gesture that he seems to do so casually—“Fair enough.”

The sexual tension is still there. That one night did nothing to abate it. In fact, I think knowing what he feels like, how he made me feel, made it even stronger.

Why do I not want him to say fair enough? Why do I want him to demand an answer and then drag me upstairs and fuck me seven ways from Sunday?

Maybe I want to be heard.

I reach out and run my hand over the scruff on his jaw. His nostrils flare at the touch of my hand and his lips part, just in time for my thumb to graze his bottom lip.

“Ellery,” he murmurs, his eyes darkening.

Without preamble, I make the decision for us that we’ve been tiptoeing around. I lean forward and press my lips to his. The kiss is soft, tender, and he lets me take the lead. It’s my tongue that seeks access first. It’s my fingers gliding up his shoulder and threading into the hair at the back of his neck.